3 Car Interior Likes

October 31, 2012 by Matt

In the vein of my overanalytical dashboard preferences post a while back, here are a few car interior design features that generate immediate appeal for me:

Consoles that flow up and into the dash. Love it when I see this. The design emphasizes the longitudinal axis, and thus forward motion of the car, and in most cases brings down the cowl height, improving sightlines so that the corners of the car can been more readily seen and positioned by the driver. The interior just seems to flow forward with the car. Example cars: Audi 5000, Nissan Maxima, Z32 Nissan 300ZX, Acura NSX (shown above).

As much instrumentation as possible. Within reason, you can never have too much information about your car’s state at your fingertips. For non-modified cars, I’d like the gauges to be incorporated into the dash design—no pods or extraneous bumps, please—but for cars with aftermarket bits, almost anything goes. I think I’m also drawn to the “comfort factor” of having all these little electronic sentinels reporting back to me. And beyond that, I do believe I harbor secret fantasies of flying a Boeing 747 or the Millenium Falcon, and additional instrumentation brings me one step closer to being on the bridge of either. Example cars: Mark 3 Toyota Supra, Porsche 911, FC Mazda RX-7 (shown above).

A proper 3-spoke steering wheel. Always a good choice. The three spokes converging in the middle remind me of target crosshairs and the vertical bottom spoke combine to create a visual reference as to the position of the wheel, and emphasize the quality and accuracy of the steering. Example cars: BMW E30 325i, Mazda RX-8, Audi B5 S4 (shown above).

2 Comments

The Audi shown above is actually a 2001 B5 S4, not a A4 as stated in the description. The gray faced gauges with white needles and the special font used on the S4 gauge cluster, along with the Recaro designed leather seats and 6-speed manual gearbox are all exclusive S4 features.